Gimme a Day Off
by pirate kit
Summary: St. John Allerdyce and the Acolytes sounds like a band. What do those Acolytes do when they aren't causing trouble? Starting fires and putting them out mostly...


LOOK! I finally got around to writing a fic that I promised! Yeah, I DID promise this to be a St. John oriented fic, … but I've gotta give some credit to the other clowns… err… I mean, Acolytes. Besides, we need to understand the insanity behind the man. Where the urge to create giant flaming boxers and make them rampage through the city comes from. 'Gimme a Day Off' is suppose to take place just before 'The Private Life of Jamie Madrox' begins.

Kit: LOOK JB! LOOK PINK PIXIE STIX!  LOOK LUNA FOX!  LOOK WIZARDESS GAL!  (ok, I think that's all of you) You guys can put down your sharp and pointy sticks. See, I'm writing! You don't have to maim me! Now, onto the fic! ::look about suspiciously, then speaks to the sofa:: Ok, I think they fell for it, you can come out now.  
St. John. ::Crawls out from under sofa:: This is pro'lly the WORST idea in the history of ideas, sheila.  
Kit: What about the Pants-Cam idea Evan had?  
St. John: … ok, I'll rephrase that. This is the second WORST idea.

**Gimme a day off!  
10/9/03**

********************************WOOOO***************************

                Fire! Man's greatest invention. With it, man gained the ability to not turn into meat popcicles (someone should have informed Bobby, daaa?) and to take down everything from wooly mammoths (highly flammable, you know) to caribou, to 20-foot tall hamburgers. Yes, fire was Man's best friend. Right up there with a bag of chips, a self-setting recliner and a HDT flat screen TV. 

"Petey! Ya in the way! Move! Moooove! Move your fat arse!" A voice whined, spraying half-chewed chips all over himself. St. John Allerdyce, a native of Australia and famed pyro to that land down under, was trying to watch cartoons. However, Piotr Rasputin, a seven foot tall Russian, happened to be meandering by at the moment and his bulk covered the entire screen. Piotr made a grunt of disapproval and stepped out of the way without ever taking his eyes out of his book.

Said book walloped John upside the head a second later. "'Ay! What was that for? Damn, that 'urt!" St. John rubbed the side of his head gingerly.

"For being a loud, rude, imbecile." Piotr said, opening his book back up. "And if I had used my fist, your head would be flat."

St. John would have had a witty retort that would have cut Colossus down a size when suddenly a commercial where a chicken was chasing a man popped up. "Ohh ohh! This is my favorite!" Folding his arms over his knees, John stared at the TV with all the attention of a man listening to a sermon. Piotr sighed and made his way to his own room, leaving the orange-haired man to his own devices. Which usually was fire…

To Piotr's surprise, Remy LaBeau was sitting in Piotr's room, idly flipping through a magazine. Burnt pieces of wood were sticking to his trenchcoat, which had acquired several holes. "Again?" Piotr pressed one large fist against his forehead.

"Heh, Remy din't know own strength. Got dat paint lyin' 'round still, homme?" Gambit smiled rather sheepishly.

"What exploded this time?"

"A pillow, alarm clock, a pair o' d'briefs and de north'n wall." Upon here, Remy is the very portrait of innocence. "Dey were Sabe's underpants."

"… I did not wish to know." Piotr winced, the image of Sabertooth's underpants dancing rampantly through his brain. 'Mind my own business', his mind repeated, mentally smacking himself in the head. Opening his closet, Piotr pulled out a bucket of paint. White. Boring White. 'Nutcase White', as Johnny referred to it as. "The wood is still where you left last, da?" In the Acolytes base, one had to be highly skilled in home repair, because Magneto sure as hell wasn't hiring someone to fix the toilet if it broke.

Gambit ran a hand through his wild hair. "Non. We gonna need more wood. Af'er da kitchen blew up, we used t'all." Ah yes, the kitchen exploding. Almost solely Gambit's fault, but St. John had a great deal of the blame as well. As was Mastermind, but that's only because his fuzzy eyebrows were nearly singed off by John which made Remy lose control while laughing and explode a good portion of the linoleum. Yeah, all three were to blame. But mostly Remy. We like blaming Remy. It's also a favorite pastime of Johnny! But I digress.

*WHOOOM!* "WOOOO! It LIIIVES!" One also had to be a skilled firefighter to be an Acolyte. With a blur of brown leather, Remy grabbed one of the many fire extinguishers lying about and bolted into the den. Sabertooth could be seen running outside, away from all and _any_ burning things. It took _weeks_ for the smell of smoke to clear out of his fur.

Dancing around like a spry wood-nymph was John and a fire elemental. … Ok, so they were less like 'spry nymphs' and more like 'drunken frat boys'. They were doing the funky chicken dance. And it stopped being so much of a 'dance' as it did 'trying to put the floor out', when the fire touched the rug. Remy lifted the nozzle of the fire extinguisher and pulled the pin from the handle.

WHOOOSH! Now the entire den was white. It was like snow! Only really, _really _bad-tasting, funny-smelling, and not as fun to throw. St. John looked up at Remy, his hand still clutching his lighter and foot in midair to try to stomp out the rug. Somehow it had eluded him to simply put out the blaze with a blast of his own pyrokinesis. Then again, if one would look closely, you would see he was stomping way to far to the left to actually put the fire out. … the bloody idiot had been trying to squish a spider.

"Comrade, we will need more materials if we are to repair the base." Piotr was looking at a rather bedraggled paintbrush. Jason, the group's resident psychic, was to go with. All large purchases, either of beer, sugar, numerous lighters, or lumber, needed to be witnessed by Magneto's right hand man. "But it is not wise to leave Saint John alone."

"I don't need a babysitter! I can take care of myself!" John announced. He was then largely ignored by everyone.

"Oui, but it's d'house we're worried 'bout," Remy murmured under his breath. "Remy go find Sabe', see if he watch d'Luciole."

The response to Remy's short phrase of French was John screaming. "I am not pants! Or dishware!" Colossus looked at Gambit, Gambit looked at Mastermind, and Mastermind quickly pretended to be deaf. Sabertooth was still in hiding outside.

Giving up, Remy stepped outside and lifted to cup his hands around his mouth. "'Ere Kitty-kitty-kittykittykitty! Come 'ere Kitty! Got kitty treats fo' ya!" He shouted.

A reverberating snarl echoed in the dense forest before Gambit was pounced to the ground by about 300 pounds of 'cat-man'. "Don't ever joke about the kitty snacks, unless you wanna lose a leg." Sabertooth snarled.

"Remy'll have t'remember dat." Gambit swallowed thickly, praying to all and any Gods' listening to save him from this homicidal maniac. Some God --or at least a high ranking holy hand grenade-- must have been listening, because Victor stomped into the house, leaving Remy flat on his back. "T'anks." He sighed to the sky.

Minute later, the Acolytes had assembled. Piotr was preparing the van while Mastermind took the passenger seat. Remy immediately claimed shotgun, as per usual. There seemed to be an unwritten rule in the van, 'If Remy's not driving, he's in shotgun'. Of course, all rules were void if Sabertooth go into the car.  That the case, everyone gave the animal-man their seat and tried to hide behind Piotr. "We will return around sundown. Keep him from destroying too much. No fire." Piotr spoke to Victor aside from the group as St. John tried to set fire to an anthill with an M-80. The poor ants didn't so much burn as they did 'explode in a fury of ant legs and dirt'.

Sabertooth thought for a moment at the near impossible task. "No friggin' way. He's got lighters stashed all over the place. There is no way to find them all." Growling, Victor wondered if babysititing via duct tape would work on a pyrokinetic.

Stepping up to the two mutants, Mastermind clasped his hands together. "I believe I could help with that. If you would quickly restrain the blithering idiot, I could make it so when ever he sees a lighter, he perceives something entirely different." The idea was so outrageous, it had a 30% chance of John stripping naked and believing he was a chicken. But it was a risk they were willing to take.

The forest suddenly got silent. Still fiddling around with his M-80, Johnny paused. He could remember a bit of training he received from Sabertooth when he was in a good mood. The 'lull before the storm' thingy. Like a quick-draw, St. John reached for his lighter, "GOTCHA!", and was promptly tackled into the dirt by a metal wall and a burly wild man. Said metal wall then hoisted the firestarter to his feet while Victor tore the lighter from his grip.

"NOOOOO! SHEILA!" John suddenly broke into wild fits of sobbing. Victor paused, a sensation much like taking candy from a baby forming in the pit of his stomach. He held the lighter up into John's face. Pyro fell silent.

He took the lighter out of John's sight. The Pyro began wailing again.

Lighter go up. Silence.

Lighter go down. Ear shattering crying.

Up. Reverenced quietness.

Down. Lots of whining.

"Hey, volume control." Victor smirked, raising the lighter to a 'half-mast' position where St. John could just barely see it, and the noise-making lowered to a more tolerable level. Piotr rolled his eyes, still holding the pyro firmly as Mastermind approached.

John was still staring intently at his lighter as Jason raised a hand to the fiery red-head. Jason's eyes flashed a blue and then John went stiff. "There. It is done. Now, whenever he sees lighters, they will appear as the most terrifying thing his mind can muster."

"Sabertooth's baby pictures?" Remy's voice came from the van, followed by snickering. A threatening snarl was aimed at the van and the laughing muted itself. Piotr pulled himself into the driver's seat while Mastermind pushed John to his new babysitter. The van vanished from sight in a cloud of dirt and gravel dust as it drove away, reaching speeds that probably were not safe on the woodland path.

Victor Creed growled in frustration, looking down at the small lighter in his paw. If Mastermind did his job, Pyro wouldn't be able to look at a lighter. If he didn't, Pyro would think he was Mr. KFC, but either way, his job was a hell of a lot easier. One clawed hand grabbed the back of John's civvies and jerked him to his feet. The Pyro was wearing an Invader Zim hoodie, and half-chewed chips on his shirt. Giving the boy a quick shake, Victor held the lighter at eye level.

Johnny blinked feebly a few times, his brain trying to gain it's barring after the violent 'alt-control-delete' that Mastermind did on him. The first thing his eyes were able to focus on was the incredibly large fist of Sabertooth and those frightening sharp (and pink… but that was his fault. He got bored on Monday) nails. As his head cleared, he noted the small objected in Sabertooth's palm. 

His brain did a backflip.

"PIKACHU!" John's eyes widened.

"Bless you." Sabertooth muttered, dropping John to his feet. The teen lost his balance in his utter shock and fell to his rear on the ground. "What is your problem? Don't you want this?" A leer formed on Victor's face as he extended the lighter to St. John.

"It's a PIKACHU!" One shaking hand rose up to point at his lighter. "Stupid mouse thing! Where's me lighter?!" The Australian began to dig through his pants, searching for his beloved Zippo ('Sparky', God, he loved that lighter). Apparently his plan was to set fire to the pikachu he was seeing.

                John's brain then preformed a cartwheel. 

"Holy Moffet! My pants are full of Pokemon!" He squeaked.

Victor raised a blond eyebrow. "That's… not something I want to hear." He cleared his throat awkwardly, dropped the lighter, and then went inside as John pulled his pants off to dump all of the lighters out. Ten 'pokemon' were on the ground by the time his pocket were all empty, and only then did John trust his pants enough to put them back on again.

"Ok… ok, calm down, Johnny-boy. They just… took my lighters. They are playing a joke." John tried to talk himself back to a reasonably sane level. Such as: only setting fire to the rug if there were bugs on it. "But how did they know my fear?! And where did they get so many…*shudder* Pokemon!?" The firestarter backed slowly into the house, far away from his pile of lighters in the driveway. 

He would find a way to burn those Pokemon! All he needed was more lighters! … You can probably see where this is heading. So let's check in with the other Acolytes.

************************************************

                "Can Remy get this?"

"NO!"

"Now 'bout this one? It not too big."

"No. No. NO. NO! We are not buying another television! We already have three in our base, and Magneto will not pay for another!" Mastermind twitched slightly, fighting the urge to make Remy think he was a 6-year-old girl. 

"Oui, but Remy don't have one in his room." The Canjun bent at the waist to look at the TV closer. "Sabe' has one, why does he need dat?"

Piotr had given up trying to direct them to the home improvement section and was standing stiffly in the isle. "Because he threatened to disembowel Jason if he did not get one." A small child was looking up at Colossus with amazement and possibly alarm. Piotr looked down.

"MOMMY! The fid'a'dator is talkin'!" The kid squealed, dashing off to find his mother. Piotr was tempted to go stand outside and wait for the others to finish shopping on their own, but Remy was horrible shopper. And Mastermind couldn't tell a 2x4 from a ball bat.

And speaking of ball bats…

"Remy! Put that down before you break someone's kneecap! We don't need that!" Mastermind ducked as Remy swung a rake through the air, pantomiming a ball game. "You'll put an eye out!"

Piotr quickly disarmed Gambit, and then began herding Mastermind towards the wood-yard. For those few seconds, a sense of normalcy fell over the store. It didn't matter if a seven-foot-tall man was pushing along a 5-foot-tall senior citizen. It didn't matter that a pair of red-on-black eyes were checking out anything with breasts either. The fact was nothing had exploded, and that was good. But it wouldn't last long.

Remy looked around suspiciously. Jason was not in sight. Piotr was not in sight. Perfect! With a flick of his wrist, he began to turn all of the TV's on. There was a slight crackle and hum as power flowed into the televisions. "Ok, mon ami, le'see wha' y'got." Gambit rubbed his hands together in anticipation. If he figured this correctly, all of the sets were at their maximum volume, and should all be on the same channel. So for the next minute (or until security fixed the problem), he'd have a show like no other.

That's when everything went wrong. A VERY large image of Mary Poppins was displayed on the screens, giving Remy a never before seen view of up-her-nose in high definition. 

                                And then the singing started. 

"Just a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down! The medicine go doooOOOOWN! The medicine, go down! In, the most dee-liiiightfuuuuul waaaaaay!" From all sides, Remy was assaulted with the singing of Julia Andrews and her sassy box hat.

Swearing, Gambit lunged forward, jabbing at the power buttons. The televisions would not turn off. In fact, every time he pushed a button, it seemed to make the volume get _louder_. Small children were now pointing and adults were looking horribly bewildered. The song continued on, and Remy developed a twitch as the refrain hit. 

"Hey mister." A teen with ruffled brown hair stood behind Gambit, looking up at the massive face of Mary Poppins. "You are pushing the volume up button… the power button is beside it." Gambit blinked. Looking back at the TV, he noted that the text was to the _right_ of the button, not the left. With a shaky hand, he flicked the power on one TV off. One down, twenty-six to go. 

When Remy finished, he looked around the store, then walked briskly to find the other two Acolytes. Waiting outside sounded even better to Piotr at this point. He could only hope the base was still standing.

*************************************************

                Indeed, the base was standing. In fact, none of the fire extinguishers had been used in a record two hours. But for those two hours, Victor had been through a living hell.

"Leggo my leg, or they'll be pulling your entrails down from the roof for weeks." Victor snarled at the whimpering pyromaniac clinging to his leg.

With remarkable foresight, Victor had disconnected the stove, the gas fireplace, and --as an after thought-- the microwave. The two flamethrowers and gas tank were hidden where the pyro would never think to look for them… in the freezer. With John perceiving all lighters to be something called a 'pokemon', and unable to work any of the large appliances, fires were down to a minimum.

"My friends. All my little friends. Sheila. Why? The pokemon, they know. They knooow." John shuddered, refusing to budge. Sabertooth kicked his foot out, finally dislodging Pyro from his leg and sending him into the wall. WHAM! St. John's head connected with the wall, knocking the teen silly. Victor felt that same feeling of guilt again. But this time it was caused because he was worried if he caused brain damage to the Australian, his pyrokinesis would get stuck on _permanently_. Kind of like Cyclopes. Only they couldn't make a nifty little visor for ol' Crazy to wear. They'd probably have to stuff him in a flame-retardant jump suit and then put him in a pool.

Wait. That's just silly. Pyro ALWAYS has his 'burnanating' on. In fact, the one time he tried not to use his powers for 24-hours, he ended up blowing the roof off of the den. Face it. Pyro is a Burnanator. He's happiest when things are combusting. Which would explain why he had been clinging to Sabertooth and whining ruefully.

"Ow. My head." Pyro reached up and rubbed the lump forming on his head.

"Ya, right in the head still?" Victor gave St. John a suspicious look, as if he expected the teen to jump up and set his own underpants on fire.

"I guess. I feel kind of funny though, like… HEY! That's my lighter!" After this was shouted, Sabertooth felt all the hair on the back of his neck bristle. John was pointing right at one of his lighters that he'd thrown across the room earlier. Looks like that 'Pikachu' perception thing snapped off when St. John rammed into the wall. Victor had to act fast. He had to act smart. He had approximately seven seconds to neutralize St. John before everything went up in smoke.

                                So, Victor acted, and the day was saved.

"Come back and fight like a man, ya big YETI!" John yelled, duct taped to the wall. The only response was a disgruntled growl as Creed stormed out of the cabin, muttering how he'd rather have tea with the 'runt' than baby-sit this psycho. 

"If only I could reach one of my lighters, I could burn my way free!" St. John struggled, kicking his feet out. He was taped with his feet dangling about two feet off the ground in a gray cocoon. "I'll have to gnaw my way to fire!" Biting down on the tape, John jerked back and made a twisted face. "URG! This is rancid! Can't chew free! Can't summon fire! Must rely on alternate source…. MAGNETO! HE'S DOING IT AGAIN!" St. John hollered. 

Unfortunately for Pyro, Magento was away. The master of magnetism was returned to one of his labs to work through a complex idea, and the Acolytes around would only cause things to explode.

Thus, St. John Allerdyce was left to hang dry until help returned. Or he developed a telekinetic abilities and pulled the tape off. Of course, the odds of that happening were even less than Pietro tripping over a pile of lighters on the floor and sliding into the wall with a funny sounding 'thud'. …. 

Hey…

"Pa-tro! Wow, g'day! Can ya get me down?" St. John kicked out with one of his legs, a sort of pseudo-wave to the speedster who was face-first into the floor.

Lifting his head from the ground, Pietro's hair was an unholy mess. Silver strands went over his nose. Silver strands had flopped down to his ears. Silver strands had tied themselves into enough knots to make an entire Boy Scout troops proud. A red mark marred Maximoff's forehead from rugburn. The front of Pietro's immaculate shirt was now ground with ashes (which littered the entire floor of the base).

In other words, get your cameras out, because Pietro looks disheveled. 

"John? Why are you taped to the wall?" Pietro rubbed his forehead, trying to nurse away the red mark. "And are you wearing my shirt?!"

Smirking broadly, St. John wiggled his arm. "If you want the shirt, you're going to have to get me down, Pa-tro." Better not tell the speedy mutant why he was taped to the wall.

Pietro lifted himself off the floor, cursing the pile of lighters that had caused him to trip in the first place. Weighting the value of his shirt with the value of his sanity, Pietro made a decision. "Sure! I'll get you down." … Hey, I didn't say it was a GOOD decision!

The tape was peeled off and John tumbled to the floor. "Thanks, mate!" St. John picked up a lighter, flipping the lid a few times. Yeah… it was good to have fire again.

"Shirt. Now." Pietro had his arms folded in a way that made him look like Magneto's mini me. Well, more than usual, that is.

"Right, right." St. John began to undo the buttons and pull the collar open. That's when the rest of them returned to see St. John removing his clothes with Pietro waiting anxiously. 

There was a pause. 

Then everyone walked out. Except Remy. His brain seemed to be fried from being overexposed to musicals.

"Geez, you'd think they never saw a shirt before." St. John muttered, tossing Pietro's shirt back at him. "Now, REVENGE ON CAT-MAN! For taping me to that wall. And stuff!" With a flick of his lighter, a flame tiger was created beside the fire-maniac. Man and fire-beast then ran outside to find Victor and exact a _horrible_ revenge on him.

It was then that Pietro noticed something. "Hey! Where'd the north wall go!?"


End file.
